In 1857, Jeremiah Lanphier was a Dutch Reformed layman with a burden for America. He lived at a crucial time in American history. Industry was booming and people were becoming intoxicated with the specter of vast wealth to be gained from the stock market. Celebrity businesspeople were capturing people’s imagination with their big, bold moves to build companies and multiply their wealth to unimaginable levels.
But there were deep fault lines running through society. The curse of slavery continued throughout the South. The livelihoods of influential landowners seemingly demanded that the system continue, despite its moral repugnance to many. The South distrusted the North, where slavery had also been practiced until it was no longer profitable. Now the North was demanding that the South destroy its economy while the North continued to expand its own industry at breathtaking speed.
As a result, society was deeply divided. During the 1860 election, southerners hated Abraham Lincoln so vehemently that his name was kept off the ballot in the southern states, and he was repeatedly burned in effigy. Feelings were so passionate that soon after Lincoln’s election, the nation was hurled into a bloody civil war during which more than 600,000 American soldiers perished, more than would be lost in all other wars combined.
To add to the angst of the age, many churches across the land were in decline. Attendance and conversions had diminished drastically in many congregations. The spirit of greed and political polarization dominated society much more than the gospel did in the giddy expansion of the Industrial Age. To businesspeople bustling about Manhattan, the august church buildings looked like relics of the past that had been abandoned for the tantalizing riches of the looming Gilded Age.
Lanphier was not a politician or a military officer. He was not a renowned orator or a popular author. He tried his hand at evangelism in New York City and was bitterly disappointed with the results. Finally, in a desperate effort, he called a prayer meeting over the noon hour. At the appointed time, the designated prayer room sat empty. Eventually, a solitary person slipped in. Then another. By the end of the hour, six people in all of Manhattan had joined Lanphier’s humble attempt at prayer.
Undeterred, Lanphier announced that the meetings would continue. The following week, more than a dozen people attended. The next week, more than 30 people assembled. Then a catastrophic financial collapse occurred. Many people lost their jobs and their fortunes. Shockwaves rippled throughout the nation. Suddenly, the prayer meetings were swamped with the unemployed, the fearful, and the hopeless. Lanphier held meetings each weekday over the noon hour. Soon, additional meeting places sprung up across Manhattan to accommodate the growing crowds desperate for God to work in their lives. A reporter raced around Manhattan over a noon hour and counted more than 10,000 people praying, but he could not reach every location before they had dismissed.
Lanphier insisted that there be no preaching in the meetings, only prayer. People could ask for specific prayer, and many of those requests were gloriously answered. Lanphier never became a celebrity, nor did he behave like one. The movement grew not on the backs of spellbinding preachers or Christian celebrities but by the moving of the Holy Spirit. Soon, similar meetings were being held in cities across America. It is estimated that over the course of one year, one million people were added to American churches. At that time, there were only roughly 30 million people in all of the United States. J. Edwin Orr claimed it might have been the greatest awakening ever to sweep America, and it is generally recognized as the last Great Awakening in North America.
During a time of great prosperity in the nation of Israel, God promised King Solomon, “If my people, who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chron. 7:14). That has been God’s formula for revival ever since. Of course, ancient Israel was different from present-day America in certain aspects, but the essential elements of revival remain the same.
First, revival starts with God’s people. They are to be the salt and light of their nation. Unbelievers cannot be expected to behave like Christians. Darkness always acts like darkness. If a land is covered in darkness, the problem is not the darkness but the light. Had the light fulfilled its purpose, the darkness would not have become predominant.
The problem in every generation is that God’s people don’t want to admit that the problem lies with them. Surely the problem is Washington, Hollywood, Wall Street, or evil businesspeople. They need to repent. But if the young people of our church have all become prodigals, it is Christian adults who must repent for not being the salt and light our children needed us to be. Unfortunately, it is far easier to blame someone else than to humble ourselves.
After we humble ourselves, we must pray. We know that. But we are still not praying as God commands. He is not asking for a few phrases of prayer for revival or repentance to be sprinkled into a crammed worship service. He requires heartfelt, anguished, desperate prayer from young and old alike. Pockets of fervent prayer are taking place, but not on the scale that is clearly needed.
Then God said we must seek his face. God warned that when there is sin in our life, he will turn his face away from us (Is. 59:1-2). Sin separates us from God. We may still attend church services and say our nightly prayers, but God is no longer listening. The tragedy is that many people in churches today are offering prayers to which God isn’t listening! We must seek his face. Even young children know that if their daddy is not looking at them, he’s not listening. Yet many of us drone on in our prayers oblivious to the fact that holy God has turned his face away from us.
Then God says we must turn from our sins. It’s interesting that in this passage, God has not yet addressed unbelievers. He’s focused on his people! Our sins can seem so small compared to those of corrupt politicians, business moguls, or evil dictators. Yet God always begins revival by making his own people holy. Nevertheless, we somehow feel that if we angrily rant against unbelievers, evil people will stop doing evil things. God knows that when his people are a holy instrument in his mighty hands, the nation will tremble before him.
Once his people have met his requirements, God acts. First, he hears from heaven. God’s ears are always open to a repentant prayer! If you want God to start listening to your prayers, start repenting. Then God says he will forgive our sin. There is something powerful about a holy and clean vessel in God’s hand. Lastly, God says he will heal the land.
Today’s landscape is filled with multitudes of broken, hurting, wounded people. When Jesus saw such people in his day, he was moved with compassion, because they were like sheep without a shepherd (Matt. 9:36). Rather than being angry at people for making foolish and harmful decisions, Jesus understood that they were blinded by sin and had no one in their lives to shed holy light upon them. When God’s people humble themselves and turn from their sin, they become the light their society desperately needs.
It is becoming increasingly clear that angrily criticizing those with whom we disagree will not bring revival to the land. Electing our preferred politicians won’t lead to revival. Building a robust economy or protecting our civil rights will not trigger revival. If we want revival, then we must do it God’s way. And God always begins with his own people. In Jeremiah Lanphier’s day, the church cried out in prayer and an enormous work of God occurred. History is waiting to see if today’s church will do the same.
